


The Little Barnacle

by Sarah_Sandwich



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Aromantic Peter Parker, BFFs May Parker & Wade Wilson, Compromise, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Humor, Idiots in Love, M/M, Marriage Proposal, One Shot, Peter Parker is a Mess, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, Wade Wilson is a Romantic, it was an accident tho, no beta we die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:13:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26724199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarah_Sandwich/pseuds/Sarah_Sandwich
Summary: "You’re panicking because you like being comfortable and he’s shaking up the status quo. You’re a little barnacle latching onto whatever surface will tolerate you, even if it’s not the best place for you. All he’s doing is showing you another surface, maybe one that you’ll like better than the one you’re on.”He nods and nods again, then takes a deep breath and asks, “Did you just call me a little barnacle?”
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, Peter Parker/Wade Wilson
Comments: 30
Kudos: 179





	The Little Barnacle

**Author's Note:**

> Anon on tumblr sent in the prompt "Marry me."
> 
> Actually I just checked and it was "Marry me?" so this whole fic now exists in defiance of the natural order and I am changing nothing. Enjoy!

“I’m gonna kill him.”

“Don’t you harm a hair on his head.”

“He doesn’t _have hair,_ May. He’s totally fair game.”

“Peter Parker, that man loves you,” May says, hands on her hips and no-nonsense frown on her lips. “If you break his heart, so help me—,”

“He’s a plague!”

“He’s sweet.”

“I haven’t had a moment of peace all day! There was a mariachi band outside the front door. They followed me all the way to work!”

“Charming,” May declares.

“My desk was buried in flowers and chocolate!”

“Romantic!”

“There was a _balloon animal clown_ in the _bathroom!”_

May covers her mouth to stifle her giggles. “I’m sorry, that’s hilarious.”

“Jameson almost burst a blood vessel! He sent me home for being disruptive!”

“Free day off! Peter, I swear you could complain about sleeping a full eight hours and waking up refreshed on a sunny day.”

He crosses his arms over his chest. “I mean, that sounds boring as heck.”

She laughs and grabs at his cheek like she means to pinch it, but he ducks out of the way. “You little stink.” Her giggles fade and her hands rest on his shoulders as she grows serious. “You know what’s coming, right?”

“Why do you think I came here instead of going home?” he asks miserably. “I’m gonna puke.”

She makes a face. “Please don’t? This is a new cardigan.”

“I noticed. It’s nice. Very soft.”

“Thank you, dear,” she says with a grin. “Wade got it for me.”

He eyes her suspiciously. “He’s been here. Today. He was here.”

She smiles, apparently pleased that he figured it out. “He knows you. He knew you’d need time to—,”

“Panic?”

“—process,” she corrects kindly. “And he wanted me to be prepared to receive a house call from an agitated nephew which I personally appreciated.”

“What does that mean, May?” he asks softly. “What does it say about me that he knew I’d freak out and then I did.”

“That you worry too much.”

“I’m being serious.”

“So am I. I’ve never seen you happier than you are with him. He lights you up. You’re panicking because you like being comfortable and he’s shaking up the status quo. You’re a little barnacle latching onto whatever surface will tolerate you, even if it’s not the best place for you. All he’s doing is showing you another surface, maybe one that you’ll like better than the one you’re on.”

He nods and nods again, then takes a deep breath and asks, “Did you just call me a little barnacle?”

She slaps his shoulders and rolls her eyes before sitting down on the love seat with a sigh. “I should have known you’d fixate on that. Shame on you, Peter Parker. I spent an hour on that speech.”

“Sorry,” he says with an unrepentant smile as he sits beside her and pulls her into a hug. “Thanks. I love you.”

“Love you too.” She kisses his temple then asks, “Did you decide?”

He releases a slow breath. “Was there ever a chance I’d actually say no?”

“I didn’t think so. Do you want a paper bag for the subway?”

“God, yes. You’re the best.”

~*~

He breathes into the paper bag all the way to Chinatown at which point he disembarks and begins the walk home. He’s never hated their apartment’s proximity to the subway until he’s standing out the door after a scant fifteen-minute walk.

He takes a deep breath and fits his key into the lock, bracing himself for whatever fresh horrors he might find within. After the mariachi band, chocolates, flowers, and balloons—what’s left? A candlelit dinner? A trail of rose petals leading to the bedroom? That’s all the romantic things, right?

He can handle those things. So long as it’s him and so long as it’s Wade, he can do it.

He turns the knob and steps in to…

Their apartment. He releases his breath all at once. It looks how it always does. A little messy, a bit spartan. Empty energy drink cans litter the salvaged coffee table, a frayed blanket is waded up on the couch, his ratty sneakers as haphazard beside the door, Wade’s apron is draped over a kitchen chair.

Is he early? Did he ruin Wade’s plan by not taking longer to panic?

He closes the door behind him and flips the lock. “Wade?”

There’s a shuffling at the end of the hall followed by Wade’s voice, “That was fast. May must have really liked that sweater.”

He follows his voice as he goes off on a tangent about his trip to Old Navy and the very nice woman who helped him pick out a good cardigan. He stops in the doorway of their bedroom and blinks at Wade in confusion.

He’s wearing a worn gray zip-up sweater over a fitted black t-shirt and dark blue jeans with holes in the knees, but not the kind that come pre-ripped from the store. Nothing about his outfit is abnormal except that it’s so _normal._ Where’s the rented tux? The top hat, tails, and cane? The flower thing that goes in the lapel?

Did he… misread the situation? No. Impossible. The only thing Wade could have done to make his intentions more clear is to write them in the sky. And May said… He _can’t_ have misunderstood.

“Should I come back later?” he blurts, interrupting the tale of the unremoved security tag and the shockingly mundane encounter that followed with the mall cop.

Wade blinks at him. “No?”

“But… toady. Everything. I thought…” He looks behind him at the living room that Wade didn’t even bother to clean up. “I guess I expected, after all the rest…”

“Oh, that!” Wade says, relaxing and sitting on the end of the bed as he fiddles with his drawstrings. “That was only to get your attention. You can be kind of dense and I wanted to make sure you were expecting it and had time to think it over. I thought we could order in and maybe do a Star Wars marathon? Or Indiana Jones. I haven’t decided yet but I’m definitely in the mood for some Harrison Ford, you know?”

“Marry me.” The words spring from his lips fully formed before he even realizes he’s thought them. But once they’re out, he doesn’t take them back. He doesn’t regret them.

Wade goggles at him. “What?”

“Wade, marry me.”

He stares, jaw working soundlessly to form words that won’t come. He can practically see the uproar White and Yellow are causing in his head.

Finally, he leaps to his feet. “You asshole! Do you know how long I’ve been planning this?! Just to convince your Flame Brain buddy to do the skywriting took for-fucking-ever!”

“Skywriting?”

Wade gasps, scandalized. “That little rat flaked. Ohhhh we are gonna get him back good. I’m thinking his entire wardrobe replaced with Goodwill special finds.”

“I don’t need skywriting, Wade.”

“It’s not about the skywriting! That ponce has a crush on you the size of the Statue of Liberty! This was sabotage. He wanted me to fail! He wanted—,”

“Wade.” He grabs his wrists impatiently. “Forget about Johnny and say yes.”

“That’s the other thing.” Wade narrows his eyes at him, freeing his wrists to prop his hands on his hips. “You think you can just waltz in here, no plan, no speech, no ring, not even on one knee, and demand my hand in marriage? Mama didn’t raise no fool. Also, I am insulted—,”

Peter growls and storms out of the room. Unbelievable. Wade is the one that teased the whole proposal thing and then didn’t follow through. Wade is the one that shoved him kicking and screaming out of his comfort zone and then didn’t finish the job. Now he thinks he gets to stand there and lecture him about not doing it right??? Unbelievable.

“Wh— Hey! I wasn’t done!”

Wade is hot on his heels as he sweeps into the kitchen like a rogue wind. He flings open the cupboard and snatches the loaf of bread, untwisting the twist-tie as behind him, Wade loses it.

“I— Are you making a sandwich?! Toast?? What the— I almost proposed to a crazy person. Dodge that bullet, am I right? I _know_ I’m crazier! That’s not the—,”

It’s as good as it’s going to get.

He turns around and drops one knee to the scuffed linoleum and holds aloft the green twist-tie now wound into a circle.

Wade’s rant trips to a halt.

“Wade Winston Wilson, I’m a little barnacle and you’re a tolerable surface.”

Wade stares like he just told him The Princess Bride was only okay. “I don’t know,” he says under his breath. “Is it brain damage? I think this is brain damage.”

“Dammit Wade, would you just—,” He cuts himself off with a calming breath and tries again. “Wade Winston Wilson, will you join me in fucking up our alliterations by marrying me?”

Wade clicks his tongue, shaking his head. “Tacky. Who wants to own up to saying the big Y-E-S to what sounds like a contrived pick-up line? This is why you’re supposed to plan these things and not _ruin_ other people’s _hard work_ and—,”

“For fuck’s sake!” He surges to his feet and hisses in his face, “I love you, you dick. You get me like no one else does—both parts of me. I didn’t think that was possible. I want to be with you not because it’s easy or convenient, but because I’m happiest when I’m with you and I’ll spend the rest of my trying to be the same for you if you’d just fucking marry me.”

“Could you ask a little nicer?” Wade asks.

_“Wade.”_ He glares up at him and falters. He’s completely serious. He’s not riling him on purpose. He really actually wants a nice and properly done proposal.

“This is good,” Wade continues. “It’s very you, but I’ve thought about this for a long time and when I pictured it I—,”

“Wade,” he says softly. He laces their fingers together and notices for the first time that his hands are shaking. They probably have been since he discovered the balloon clown in the bathroom. “There’s no one else I…” He looks up from their clasped hands and says, “There’s no one else. Not for me.”

“I bet you say that to all the boys,” Wade teases but his tone is gentle and his eyes are bright.

“I’ve never seen another boy in my whole life. Not as clearly as I see you.”

Wade closes his mouth with a click and his eyes go soft but stay intent on his face.

He licks his lips and drops his gaze to their hands as he tries to corral his scattered thoughts. “I umm… You’re right that I didn’t buy a ring or write a speech but I’ve thought a lot about the ways that you’ve changed my life and uh… I don’t think I’d be happy without you. That was kind of a kick in the teeth when I first realized but… who else is there?

“Who else can I fight crime with and watch crap TV and trade sewing tips? Who else knows the best taco truck in the city and also, intimately, how hard it is to get grease stains out of spandex? Who else can I trust to have my back in a fight and also with my name, my face, and my aunt? You’re one of a kind and I’d be a special kind of stupid if I didn’t take the step to let you know, definitively, exactly what you mean to me.

“So Wade Winston Wilson, my partner in all aspects of my life, will you marry me?”

Wade sniffs and blinks watery eyes. “Well since you asked so nice. Yeah. Yes.” He giggles. “Fuck, of _course_ I’ll marry you, baby boy. You didn’t have to beg, although it was a very good look on—,”

“You’re _impossible.”_ He crams the homemade ring onto one of Wade’s fingers at random and pivots on his heel. “We’re watching Indiana Jones. I don’t want to see you until you’ve ordered lunch.”

~*~

“Only the best movies end with Nazi’s being melted,” he muses, stuffing a handful of popcorn into his mouth.

In the ensuing silence, he tears his eyes from the screen to glance down at Wade, half-expecting him to be asleep. Quiet isn’t a word anyone would use to describe Wade. Bad things tend to happen when Wade goes quiet.

He’s not asleep but he’s not watching the movie either. His head is nestled in Peter’s lap as he plays with the frayed band of green around his ring finger and a small content smile curls his lips.

His heart goes soft at the sight. He runs his thumb over the twist-tie and Wade’s eyes flick up to meet his.

“I’ll get you a real one,” he promises.

“I like this one.”

“I’m still going to get you a real one. You can have both.”

“Okay,” Wade agrees, his smile growing. “Do you want yours?”

“Mine?”

“The ring I bought you, dummy.”

“You bought me a— Of course you did.”

“You’re so lucky you’re pretty, Petey,” Wade says, sitting up to plant a kiss on the underside of his jaw. “I’ll go get it!”

Wade doesn’t seem to register his unhappy whine as he rolls off his lap and bounds into their room without a second glance. Chilled, due to the loss of his human heater, and displeased, due to the loss of his snuggle-buddy, he crams another handful of popcorn into his mouth and listens to Wade shuffle about.

When he comes back, he vaults over the back of the couch and lands heavily on the middle cushion. Only sticky fingers and years of experience with Wade’s shenanigans saves the popcorn bowl from a sudden meeting with the floor.

“Can I put it on you?”

“Yeah, sure.” He sucks the butter from his fingers, wipes the spit on his shirt, and holds out his hand.

The band Wade slips on his finger is a simple, undecorated gold. Understated and elegant and the opposite of everything Wade likes. He’s weirdly cognizant of the extra weight on his finger.

“Is there an inscription?”

“No,” Wade says slowly. “Did you want one?”

“No. I mean, I don’t know.” The light from the TV reflects in the polished gold. “I hadn’t thought about it. I just… You didn’t even bedazzle it or anything.” He tries on a playful smile but it falls short.

Wade smiles back, more confused than anything. “Well _duh._ It’s for you! I wanted you to like it.” His smile dips. “You do like it, don’t you?”

“I, yeah.” He meets his eyes and says with conviction. “I do, it’s just… We’re really different. Aren’t we?”

“Oh here we go.” Wade shifts and pulls his phone out of his pocket. “Don’t worry, I’ve got Aunt May on speed dial. She’ll—,”

“Stop. Wade, _stop._ Don’t call her.” He snatches the phone from his fingers and tosses it onto the coffee table. The stack of empty take-out cartons from lunch topples over the edge but neither of them pays it any mind.

“Why do you have or on— _Speed dial isn’t even a thing anymore!”_

“Aw, you got me, Webs. She’s at the top of my recents though so if you think about it, that’s basically the same—,”

“Wade, stop. Why do you think you need to call May? Can’t we figure it out on our own? If we can’t then don’t you think we probably shouldn’t—,”

“Oh shit, I made it worse. Fucking typical. Stupid.”

Peter tunes him out and presses on. “If you have to call my aunt for every little hiccup then… What if we’re making a mistake? We should be able to talk to each other if we’re going to get married, right? We should… I don’t know! Shouldn’t we have more in common? What if we end up hating each other? I don’t want to—,”

Wade pivots up and drops into his lap, a knee on either side of his thighs, and cups his face in his palms. The popcorn bowl tumbles to the floor.

“I don’t give a shit about ‘shoulds’ and ‘maybes’. I love you. I could never hate you, baby boy. Never. Never. Never. We balance each other out. You fill my empty spaces with your extra spaces and vice versa.”

“This is no time for sex jokes, Wade,” Peter says quietly.

Surprise and then a wide grin crack across Wade’s face. He leans down and kisses him hard and fast and over far too quickly. He chases his lips but Wade holds him back.

“Fuck, I love you so much. I would love for you to fill my empty spaces but first, we need to unfuck your head a little.”

“I _know_ I’m overthinking it. It’s that… It’s going really fast, isn’t it? Rings already? Wow.” He laughs nervously.

Wade makes a face. “I think it’s pretty normal to have at least one ring for the engagement, snuggle bear. Although mine is stunning,” he flashes his twist-tie ring, “I think yours is the real breadwinner here. And not only because I picked it out and paid actual money for it and have been gazing at it longingly in secret for the past month.

“That’s not the point though,” he says, waving his hand dismissively. “You know you don’t _have_ to wear it, right? Engaged isn’t the same as married. We can take is as slow as you want.”

“You want me to though.”

“Well, _yeah._ There’s a lot of things I want you to wear but I don’t see you strutting around in a leopard-print thong and a purple silk robe.”

He snorts but the tiny smile that teases his lips dies quickly. “But it’d make you happy. I feel like I should.”

“Petey, I don’t want you to do anything just because you think you should. Not for me. Relax. It’s still just me and you. Don’t worry about things changing. That’s what today was supposed to be all about. We can still be us. I don’t want to change what we already have. I thought it’d be nice to add some sprinkles, that’s all. If you don’t like sprinkles, one, sprinkles are delightful what the fuck is wrong with you and two, that’s okay. Don’t worry about it. We’ll stay same old same and I’ll be happy with that.”

“I always worry, you know this.”

“You’re damn right I do.”

It hits him like a train that _he does._ This morning was all the proof in the world that Wade Wilson knows him and is prepared to meet him in the middle. He stares at the ring on his finger and it doesn’t feel so awkward all of the sudden. Then he looks to the twist-tie ring on Wade’s finger that he hasn’t taken off except to place it on the correct finger. That was hours ago.

“I’ll buy you a real one,” he says again. He’ll buy one he can be proud of and show off. Oh fuck, he’s gonna go broke over a goddamn piece of jewelry.

“Yeah?” Wade asks, a hopeful gleam in his eyes.

He softens and says, “Yeah. I’m gonna fill your empty spaces and I’m going to wear this ring while I do it and you better wear yours.”

“Okay,” Wades agrees without hesitation. “Point of clarification, are we talking about sex or marriage.”

“Yes,” Peter says. It doesn’t take any effort at all to lift Wade by his thighs and carry him off to the bedroom.

Wade whoops in delight and kisses him breathless. “Dibs on being the bride!”

**Author's Note:**

> Surprise! I wrote this whole thing in a single day and have thrown it out like chum for the sharkies so if there's a million errors I'm so sorry some day I will rebuild but today my eyeballs are tired and my brain desperate for validation
> 
> Let me know if you liked it? Peter turned out hella aro and that was his choice and there's nothing I can do about that so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
